BusinessMirror April 7, 2015

STRIKES PROLIFERATE IN CHINA AS WORKING CLASS AWAKENS

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ORE than three decades after Beijing began allowing market reforms, China’s 168 million migrant workers are discovering their labor rights through the spread of social media. They are in the forefront of a laborprotest movement that is posing a growing and awkward problem for the ruling Communist Party, wary of any grassroots activism that can threaten its grip on power. »B3-1

MIGRANT workers hold signs displaying the words “end slavery” during a labor day rally in Hong Kong, China, in this May 1, 2014, file photo. BRENT LEWIN/BLOOMBERG

BusinessMirror

THREETIME ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDEE 2006, 2010, 2012

U.N. MEDIA AWARD 2008

A broader look at today’s business TfridayNovember 18,2015 2014Vol.Vol.1010No.No.18040 Tuesday, April 7,

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KEEP CALM AND EMBELLISH ON Glory to God, our saviour!

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EXPLORING GOD’S WORD, FR. SAL PUTZU, SDB AND LOUIE M. LACSON

Word&Life Publications • teacherlouie1965@yahoo.com

Editor: Gerard S. Ramos • lifestylebusinessmirror@gmail.com

CRATE & Barrel Big Sur dining table

Life

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

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REASURY bill (T-bill) rates moved higher across the board on Monday, forced upward by the market realizing that soon interest rates should move significantly higher than where they are at present.

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MEDIA center styled for this hip century by designer Bill Eastburn for Crate & Barrel

CRATE & Barrel Nash entryway cabinet

Keep calm and embellish on

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T-bills start fetching higher rates

START WITH THESE 3 STEPS TO DESIGN A SPACE »D4

BusinessMirror

B G R Lifestyle & Entertainment Editor Photos from Crate & Barrel, H&M

Y! If only giving your space a quick pick-me-up were as easy as making a quick post-office stop at some global fast-fashion store where a premium linen check long-sleeved shirt or a linen stole can give your summer wardrobe that extra punch—without burning a hole through your pocket.

True, having a bold accent wall (say, in Pantone-recommended Marsala?) should easily freshen up your tired-looking space. Then again, this would be quite the commitment that, if it turns out that this shade of deep red isn’t quite your thing, you can’t hide in the deepest recesses of your closet as easily you did that floral-printed shirt you bought after learning that Prada was doing flowers for men. (What were you thinking?!) It’s something that you would have to live with until Pantone announces the color of the year for 2016—and how sure are you whatever that would be is something you could stare at for the next 12 months?

So, forget about the accent wall, however appealing a concept it may be.

❶ H&M Linen

As with your wardrobe, you don’t need do a major overhaul of your space to look forward to returning home from work after an exhausting workday— and it should cost you only as much as that recent LBD purchase (the nth such piece in your closet, by the way, but really you can’t have too many LBDs, right?), perhaps even less.

How about those linen throw pillow covers from H&M Home to give your space that bohemian vibe? That straw box, also from H&M Home, makes for stylish storage for the space-challenged. And since we’re on the subject of coming home after a tough day at work, the Crate & Barrel Nash entryway cabinet should be just the right welcome. You might want to consider a couple of those turquoise Neils dining chair from Crate & Barrel for your studio apartment because, hey, it’s summer. (You can always bequeath to your poor sister those industrial-looking—and supremely uncomfortable— chairs that came with your opaque glass table.)

Go for the things that speak to you in terms of both aesthetics and functionality. And don’t worry too much about whether that photo frame from H&M Home matches the rest that you have at su casa. Remember not only Tim Gunn’s disdain for “matchy-matchy” but also that you’re putting together a home—not some sterile showroom for a condo developer. ■

Cushion Cover

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H&M Straw Storage Box

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H&M Tealight Holder

How a home library can be easy on the eye B V P The Charlotte Observer

height or depth. From here you can decide to organize your books by size or color.

Grouping all like colors makes a dramatic visual statement. If you prefer to organize by size, start with the tallest books and work your way to the shortest. Halfway through a long row of books, turn a few on their side and place an interesting object on top of the stack.

Think beyond the stories on the page.

The images that decorate the jackets and the colors of the binding go together to help make a simple room more stimulating.

My coffee table always has a stack or two of carefully selected books. If I’m entertaining a group of old friends, that stack may contain books about the Beatles or travel destinations that we have shared.

The presence of those books ignites conversations and memories.

If I’m moving from winter to spring, a stack of beach-themed books topped with a pretty sea shell creates a new direction for my décor. In a guest room, I may select titles that I know will inspire guests and let them know that I have taken extra time to prepare for their visit.

Appealing tabletop displays put objects

I’VE always been a book person. I love the way books feel when I hold them, how they look stacked neatly on a coffee table and the orderly beauty of rows and rows of books on a shelf.

Over the years, my books have grown into a library. They remind me of all the wonderful characters, stories and ideas that have helped shape my life and my home’s décor. I was thrilled when I recently read that home libraries are making a comeback, in spite of our urge to simplify our lives and reduce clutter. Perhaps it’s that books are neat, stackable, colorful accessories that can become the major focal point of a room or its subtle backdrop.

I prefer shelves that display a mixture of books with other interesting objects. Bring together a few rows of books among boxes, vases and framed artwork, and now you have an attention-grabbing vision.

There is an art to placing books on shelves. Books should be aligned in a straight row about 1 inch to 2 inches from the front edge of a shelf regardless of their

❸ at varying heights. If every piece stands equally tall, the look can be lacking. Try using one or two carefully selected books to elevate an object. That will instantly change the arrangement.

The floor is also a great place for displaying books. I often use a stack of large, thick books as a small end table next to a reading chair. If you don’t have bookshelves, consider filling baskets with books and sliding them under a table or desk. In the kitchen, don’t hide your cookbooks. Put them out on shelves or display a couple of them leaned against your backsplash. You’ll be amazed at how much color and fun they can add to your kitchen setting.

The most important thing you can do with your books is to enjoy them and share them. To reread a favorite book is like spending the evening with an old friend.

And if you’re looking for a way to spark your mind and your décor, reach for a book.

THE most important thing you can do with your books is to enjoy them and share them.

LIFE

■ Designer and home improvement expert Vicki Payne is host and producer of For Your Home available on PBS, Create TV and Home, in national and international syndication.

Reach her at www.foryourhome.com.

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3 STEPS TO DESIGN A SPACE Design&Space BusinessMirror

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“IN my opinion, a room doesn’t ever feel ‘done’ until there is a mix of artwork on the wall,” Mary Carol Garrity says.

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www.businessmirror.com.ph

START WITH THESE

STEPS

TO DESIGN A SPACE

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B M C G Tribune News Service

RECENTLY asked my Facebook friends to tell me what they’d like me to blog about, and one decorating dilemma that came up over and again was: “Where do I start when I’m designing a room?” Some were moving into brand-new houses and had a big (and intimidating) blank slate.

Others wanted to redecorate an existing room. I love this question because at Nell Hill’s we have a blast helping customers create spaces that reflect their style, celebrate their personalities and flow with their daily lives. So, how do you build a beautiful room? Here are my three steps: FIRST, FIND YOUR INSPIRATION SELECTING the look for a room can feel overwhelming.

Y may be dazzled by all the possibilities. I know I was You when I decorated our little lake house. I was considering lots of different styles and colors, and I had a tough time deciding which one was right for us. But my hunch is that you are a lot further along in your decision than you think you are. I know I was. Usually we have a few common design elements we gravitate toward, like a group of fabrics in a certain style and palette.

NEXT, DETERMINE WHAT GOES AND WHAT STAYS WHEN EN we are designing a space for our homes, very few of us start completely from scratch. Usually we have a few pieces we want to include in the space, like a favorite sofa or a gorgeous rug or a piece of art. When Dan and

I moved into our lake home, we had a list of items that were nonnegotiables, like our ottoman and a few favorite chairs. What existing pieces do you want to work into the design of your new room?

THEN BUILD THE LOOK LAYER BY LAYER MY Y first step when designing a room is to start with the key furnishings, like the sofa, because they play a pivotal role in telling the story of the room. In our showroom, we put a lively navy and white fabric on a pair of sofas and positioned them on either side of the fireplace to create a more intimate conversation grouping in a large room. After you have picked the largest and most dominant furniture in the room, it’s time to select accent pieces, like the chairs. We wanted to balance our navy stripe with a big hit of coral, one of our inspiration colors, so we added two motion chairs to flank the fireplace. T To balance the grouping, we added a matched set of chairs on the opposite side. We went with a muted dot upholstery fabric, a neutral that brought some quiet energy to the grouping while also balancing out all the bold patterns and saturated hues.

We often include upholstered coffee tables at the center of larger seating areas because they provide fabulous footrests and a zap of color and pattern. If you want more neutral fabric on your furniture, you can go a bit bolder on your ottoman.

Accent pillows play a huge role in pulling together your upholstered furniture. We repeated our inspiration fabrics and mixed in a few others to make the room more interesting. Skillful pattern mixing is at the heart of a well-appointed room.

Next, we filled in with additional furnishings,

including a sofa table that frames the seating arrangement. A coral geometric fabric on the stool under the table further fleshes out our color palette.

Once the furnishings are in place, it’s time to make the room truly unique—truly yours—using accents.

Select lamps that add to your look.

Fill in with a unique rug. Pop in pottery pieces. Add touches of seasonal greens. The number of layers in a

DESIGN&SPACE

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Sports

BRUTALLY

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| TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 2015 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph sports@businessmirror.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao

HOT VICTORY B S W

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The Associated Press

new rankings, but he has lost 12 consecutive matches to his biggest rivals—Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer—since winning Wimbledon in 2013 by beating Djokovic in the final.

Djokovic was inconsistent early in the tournament and let his frustration show, receiving two code violations and a point penalty during one win. He drew another code violation in the final for swearing after he lost the second set, but he quickly regained his poise.

In the last set, Murray hit two weary backhands into the net to lose serve and fall behind 1-0. Two games later he saved five break points before dumping another backhand into the net to go down 3-0, and Djokovic easily closed out the win.

Murray acknowledged his third-set shutout by tweeting, “This egg today wasn’t appreciated on Easter.”

Djokovic’s fresher legs at the end of the two-hour and 47-minute match were especially impressive because Murray lives in Miami and is more accustomed to the South Florida heat.

“I wasn’t feeling great at all on the court,” Djokovic said. “He was making me work. But he felt the same.”

Murray conceded he wilted at the finish, but said he trains as hard as he can.

“I don’t think that I can do a whole lot more physically to get in much better shape,” he said.

“It’s tough, because it was obviously pretty brutal conditions out there, and he was stronger than me at the end for sure.”

Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza won the title in women’s doubles by defeating Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina, 7-5, 6-1.

The men’s final matched two of the game’s

IT’S HOLMES IN HOUSTON H

OUSTON—JB Holmes used a strong start last Sunday for a Houston Open victory in a three-way playoff against Jordan Spieth and Johnson Wagner.

The 32-year-old Holmes birdied the first five holes and nine of the first 12 after starting the day six shots back of Jordan Spieth.

He had a 64, the day’s low round, and won on the second playoff hole for his fourth Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour victory and the $1,188,000 check. Although Holmes’s missed birdie putt had given Wagner another chance, his short putt for par lipped out.

“I knew I had to play a really low round and I started out great,” Holmes said. “It worked out for me.”

Spieth, the hottest player on the PGA Tour heading into the Masters, was trying to win his second playoff in three weeks, sandwiched around a runner-up finish in the Texas Open last Sunday.

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BusinessMirror

EY BISCAYNE, Florida—Hot but happy, Novak Djokovic had just begun celebrating his latest championship when he tossed his towel and sweatbands into the crowd. They were soggy souvenirs for sure.

Djokovic earned his fifth Key Biscayne title last Sunday, beating Andy Murray for the seventh consecutive time by showing superior stamina in the subtropical heat to win the Miami Open final, 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-0.

Murray broke in the final game of the second set to even the match, but fatigue then became a factor on a sunny, humid, 80-degree afternoon.

Djokovic was the fitter player down the stretch.

“It was brutal—it’s very warm,” he said. “I was prepared for a physical battle. But it’s one thing to prepare and another thing to experience it on the court. I was expecting very long rallies and just managed to play the third set the way I was supposed to, and I’m thrilled with this win.”

The top-ranked Djokovic became the first man to complete the Indian Wells-Key Biscayne spring sweep three times, and he has done it twice in a row. He beat Murray in the Indian Wells semifinals and in the Australian Open final for his eighth Grand Slam title two months ago.

Murray fell to 8-18 against Djokovic.

“I’m not quite there with Novak yet, but I feel like I’m getting a little closer,” Murray said with a chuckle. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make more of a fight of it in the third set. I was trying. My legs were tired and I couldn’t quite finish hard enough.”

Murray will climb from fourth to third in the

But he bowed out on the first playoff hole after his approach shot landed in a bunker and, lying two, he couldn’t get close to the cup on his chip.

Wagner, who got into the field only through a sponsor’s exemption, was trying to become only the second player to get into the Masters on the weekend before it starts, having done it previously by winning Houston in 2008.

Holmes’s final-day rally was the biggest on the PGA Tour since Matt Jones also came from six down to beat Matt Kuchar in a playoff last April. The Houston Open has featured more playoffs than any tournament on the circuit.

Wagner and Holmes hit perfect drives on the first playoff hole, while Spieth almost landed in the water, then wound up buried in the sand.

“I’m not sure what happened,” he said. “I heard something or maybe it was just me.

It’s not an excuse. I got down in the sand and caught it fat and didn’t give myself a chance to continue in the playoff.”

Earlier, Spieth had seemingly shot himself out of contention with a poor approach on No. 18, the hardest hole on the course. He wound up with a steep downhill lie and a bunker to clear. However, he chipped within 11-and-ahalf feet, then calmly made the putt.

Spieth was trying to become the secondyoungest player after Tiger Woods to win a third PGA Tour event before his 22nd birthday.

He also could have passed Jimmy Walker, who pulled out of the tournament before it began citing illness, for the lead in the current season’s points standing.

Still, Spieth thinks he’s well positioned to contend this week in the Masters. He finished second to Bubba Watson last year.

“I felt very comfortable with more and more pressure going into Augusta, which has

best retrievers, and they waged a succession of long, entertaining rallies in the early going. Djokovic’s legs splayed as he skidded on the hard court digging out shots in the corners, and Murray hustled just as hard, closing one 35-stroke marathon with a backhand winner.

But the quality of play was patchy, and Djokovic converted only five-of-18 break-point chances. Both players blew overheads and easy volleys, and the bright sun bothered them in the opening set, when they looked directly into the glare at the north end of the court.

The player with his back to the sun won the first 10 games, which included four service breaks. In the tiebreaker, Djokovic took a 4-0 lead with his back to the sun and won the final two points on unforced errors by Murray.

As the angle of the sun changed, both players settled in on their serves and traded holds to 6-5 in the second set. Murray then came up with the shot of the match, blocking back a Djokovic overhead and landing it on the sideline for a winner.

Murray smacked a return winner on the next point to break at love and even the match, but that was his last hurrah.

His consolation: He’s getting married on Saturday in his hometown of Dunblane, Scotland. Djokovic won’t be attending.

“Not invited,” Djokovic said with a smile. “But I wish him all the best.”

the most pressure anywhere,” he said.

Holmes began the day as an afterthought, tied for 18th place. But he turned the corner in the final round with a 29, tying the tournament course record for the front nine. His birdie on No. 8 pulled him even with Spieth and another on No. 9, coupled with a Spieth bogey back on six, gave him a lead he wouldn’t relinquish before he left the course to wait for the others to finish.

Three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson was only a shot off the lead through 36 holes. But he began the day, like Holmes, six strokes back, having shot 75 last Saturday with three consecutive closing birdies.

Although he birdied the first hole on Sunday, the 2011 winner posted a 71 to wind up in a 17th place tie, seven shots behind Holmes. AP

S “T-,” A

SPORTS JB HOLMES wins Houston Open in a three-player playoff. AP

AYALALANDTOLAUNCHNEW P7BRETAILBONDOFFERING B VG C

BRUTALLY HOT VICTORY

Novak Djokovic earns his fifth Key Biscayne title last Sunday, beating Andy Murray for the seventh consecutive time by showing superior stamina in the subtropical heat to win the Miami Open final, 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-0.

ments were a manifestation of the market now realizing that domestic interest rates were bound to range higher beginning the second half of the year.

“The market now has more evidence that over the medium to long term, the interest-rate outlook should begin to lift,” he said in a telephone interview on Monday.

This had to do with the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) increasingly seen to make appropriate monetary-policy adjustments, as the world’s largest and most influential central bank begins to normalize, or scale up, its interest rates.

■ This article was adapted from Mary Carol Garrity’s blog at www.nellhills.com. She can be reached at marycarol@nellhills.com.

Japan and Hong Kong.

“Most of the entries are unique and relevant to the needs of Filipinos—from out-of-the-box structures that can withstand storm surges to design inspired by the Philippines’ natural wonders. They all prove that Filipino students are talent to watch out for in the international arena,” said Gladys Goh, general manager of Nippon Paint Malaysia Group.

Winning the top prize in the interior design category is Caballes, whose “The Green House: A Proposed Organic Residence located in Opra, Cebu City” promotes green design, where residents can use rainwater as their source of energy and water supply. The organic design residence also uses shades of brown and other earth tones drawn from nature: brown soil, brown trees, green leaf, cloudy sky, as well as the red sun. These palettes can create a warm, nature-friendly atmosphere.

Likewise, addressing the frequency of rain and typhoons in the country is Labacanacruz, who is also the Gold Awardee in the architecture category.

He wowed the judges with his “Indayog ng Kulay” housing project that uses recycled container vans for stable low cost housing instead of tents, which are not resistant to typhoons. The colors chips used are festive colors that promote the cultural context of the city, as well as convey Filipino’s cheerfulness.

The colors on the containers’ trellis follow a circular motion of the building, giving an illusion that the

TOPRANKED Novak Djokovic becomes the first man to complete the Indian WellsKey Biscayne spring sweep three times, and he has done it twice in a row. AP

As a consequence, the government—which decided to borrow more locally than overseas—made a partial award of only P14.46 billion instead of the P20 billion it planned to dispose to help ease the repricing of benchmark rates in the secondary market.

The auction committee allowed the 91-day T-bill rate to move 25.8 basis points higher to 1.655 percent, as the increment was found consistent with rates at the secondary market. A month earlier, the three-month paper was sold at only 1.397 percent.

Jonas Ravelas, market strategist at Banco de Oro, said the adjust-

room is strictly up to you.

Finish with fabulous art. In my opinion, a room doesn’t ever feel “done” until there is a mix of artwork on the wall.

Creating living spaces of the future TWO students with storm-centric designs won the gold prizes at the country’s first Nippon Paint Young Designer Award (NPYDA) 2014, a prestigious competition for interior design and architecture students that recognizes green factors, efficient use of space, and purpose.

Kristine Caballes from University of San Carlos Cebu and Jason Labacanacruz from the Technological University of the Philippines Manila both flew to Osaka, Japan, in March to attend the cross-country learning program with other NPYDA winners from Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, China,

P.  |     | 7 DAYS A WEEK

ACROSSTHEBOARD INCREASE IN TBILL RATES REFLECTS MARKET’S ANTICIPATION OF HIKE IN DOMESTIC INTEREST RATES

INSIDE

EAR Jesus, Your attitude on noninvolvement in political matters could not meet the approval of the glory-minded and power-grabbers who wanted to use You for their own ends. Disillusioned, they rejected You as a “useless messiah.” They easily became Your instruments avowed enemies, who, in a very short time, mustered a crowd of easily bought rowdy elements who filled the air with the cruel clamor “crucify Him!” May we never say the same shaming words. Instead, we rejoice and proclaim “Glory to God, our savior!” Amen.

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YALA Land Inc. on Monday said it is set to launch its P7-billion retail-bond offer as part of the company’s series of fundraising this year to bankroll its capital expenditures (capex) for the year.

Jaime E. Ysmael, Ayala Land CFO, said the company is “about to start” the offering of the debt paper, which forms part of the P15 billion that it sought approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission last year.

“There’s still the institutional building [process]. Price setting should happen in the next two weeks. After which, we go to a oneweek offer period. We will issue [the bonds] about end of April, first week

PESO EXCHANGE RATES ■ US 44.6230

of May,” Ysmael said.

Officials said the paper will have a tenor of seven years, which is trading at the secondary market at 3.65 percent. The paper will also be listed in the Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp.

Last year Ayala Land issued P8 billion in retail bonds, proceeds of which were used to fund its capex.

Ysmael said the offering also forms part of some P15 billion to P20 billion in fund-raising of the company to fund its record P100billion capex.

“We are looking at Homestarter Bonds, but that’s a small issue, maybe P1 billion to P2 billion. The rest are bilateral loans at the subsidiary level, accessing the bank lines directly available,” he said.

S “A,” A

SAVORING SUMMER Kids attempt to stand on their salbabida (life buoys) while playing in a beach in Mogpog, Marinduque. Many schoolchildren in the Philippines, who are now on vacation, prefer to go to beaches to beat the summer heat. ALYSA SALEN

Megaworld hikes 5-year capex to ₧285.8B

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EADING property developer Megaworld Corp. on Monday said it will increase its fiveyear capital expenditures (capex) by more than P50 billion, as it expanded its existing mixed-use projects while building new ones all over the country.

The company said in a statement that it intends to spend this year some P285.8 billion, or P50.8 billion more than the P230 billion that the company initially announced last year.

“Certainly, we have sufficient land bank and landholdings that will sustain our plans to further expand

TAN said Megaworld Corp. will build 20 new malls and commercial centers on its existing townships during the fiveyear period.

and grow our townships all over the Philippines. While we continue to create and expand our mixed-use

communities in Metro Manila, we will also expand our presence in the provinces, especially in major growth centers,” the company said.

Megaworld Chairman Andrew L. Tan earlier said the company will build 20 new malls and commercial centers on its existing townships during the period.

The company did not give a breakdown of the capex for the five-year period. This year, however, Megaworld is allocating P65 billion for its residential and hotel projects, office buildings, as well as malls and commercial centers S “M,” A

■ JAPAN 0.3750 ■ UK 66.5820 ■ HK 5.7567 ■ CHINA 7.2007 ■ SINGAPORE 33.0589 ■ AUSTRALIA 34.1808 ■ EU 48.9604 ■ SAUDI ARABIA 11.8966 Source: BSP (6 April 2015)

News

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Tuesday, April 7, 2015

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Megaworld. . .

Oil. . .

Binay gets authority to stay as Makati mayor from CA

Continued from A1

Tan added the increase in population in its mixed-use communities “indicates the opportunities that await the company’s commercial and retail partners.”

For more than two decades, Megaworld has built malls and commercial centers in each of its townships to primarily cater to the growing communities within its developments.

Among its malls and commercial centers include the Eastwood Mall, Citywalk 1 and 2, and Cyber and Fashion Mall in Eastwood City; Newport Mall in Newport City; Venice Piazza and Tuscany in McKinley Hill and Lucky Chinatown in Binondo, Manila.

There will be new malls in Uptown Bonifacio and McKinley Hill, both in Fort Bonifacio, opening within the year. Megaworld started its commercial and retail business when Eastwood City was established in 1999. Eastwood City, the country’s first cyberpark, is now home to almost 25,000 condominium residents and around 70,000 BPO and office workers.

It used to be a 16-hectare township but expanded its land area last year. VG Cabuag

inside its developments.

About three quarters of the capital spending for the year will be for development projects, mostly in townships, while the rest will be for land acquisition and property investments.

The group, which also includes its units Suntrust Properties Inc., Empire East Land Holdings Inc. and Global-Estate Resorts Inc., is set to launch 22 residential projects in Metro Manila, Laguna, Batangas, Boracay, Iloilo and Bacolod.

The group is also launching three hotel towers in Boracay Newcoast, 10 office towers in McKinley West, McKinley Hill, Eastwood City, Woodside City, Davao Park District and Southwoods City; and three malls and commercial centers across its townships all over the country.

Tan, in a statement issued earlier, said Megaworld’s 20 townships will be home to around 600,000 condominium and village residents and 400,000 business-process outsourcing (BPO) and office workers.

“By 2020 we expect to increase our total population by 150 percent in all of our urban townships, which will reach at least 1 million,” Tan said.

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By Joel R. San Juan

AKATI City Mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” S. Binay Jr. can now heave a sigh of relief, thanks to the Court of Appeals (CA).

The CA indefinitely stopped the Office of the Ombudsman from implementing its joint order placing him under a six-month preventive suspension pending resolution of a graft case filed against him for his alleged involvement in the overpricing of the Makati City Hall Building II. In a 15-page resolution penned by Associate Justice Jose Reyes Jr., the CA’s Sixth Division granted the plea of Binay’s camp for the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction enjoining respondents Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales and the Department of the Interior and Local Government from enforcing Binay’s suspension order issued on March 10.

The appellate court directed the parties to preserve the status quo before the issuance of the joint order.

The CA, however, ordered Binay to file a bond amounting to P500,000 to answer for whatever damages which may be sustained by reason of the preliminary injunction in the event that it is finally decided that he is not entitled for the said remedy.

“While public office is a public trust and there is no vested right to hold public office, still it is the policy of the Court to exercise utmost scrutiny in reviewing suspension orders

Continued from A8

as the third-largest producer in the Opec, a Bloomberg survey showed.

Saudi Arabian Oil Co. will ship Arab Light in May at 60 cents a barrel below a regional benchmark, the state-owned company said in an e-mailed statement on Sunday. That’s up from a discount of 90 cents for April. Tehran-based National Iranian Oil Co. will probably also increase its May prices, according to a quarterly formula it’s used previously.

Earlier this year, both companies offered steeper discounts to their customers in Asia to compete with supplies from Latin America, Africa and Russia.

Hedge funds and other money managers boosted their net-long position on WTI by 21 percent in the seven days ended March 31, data from the US. Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed.

That’s the biggest percentage gain since March 2011. Bloomberg News

brought before its jurisdiction by reason of jurisprudential aversion toward preventive measure,” the CA said. The appellate court noted that contrary to the claim of the Ombudsman, there was no concrete indication and evidence of Binay’s participation for the alleged payments on July 3, 2013, July 4, 2013, and July 24, 2013, corresponding to Hillmarc’s Construction Corp. and MANA Architecture and Design Co. However, the CA stressed that it is not suggesting for the Ombudsman to stop its investigation insofar as the administrative and criminal case of Binay. It noted that the Ombudsman’s power to investigate is “distinct from the authority to preventively suspend.”

“Notwithstanding these pronoucements lifted from calibrated propositions and documentations from the parties, it did not perforce mean, too, that we virtually placed the cart ahead of the horse, so to speak,” it added.

In seeking a writ of preliminary injunction, Binay argued that he is entitled to such relief as he has a “clear and unmistakable right to hold public office” having won by a landslide vote in the 2010 and 2013 local elections.

3-DAY EXTENDED FORECAST APRIL 7, 2015 | TUESDAY

TODAY’S WEATHER

EASTERLIES AFFECTING THE EASTERN SECTION OF LUZON AND VISAYAS (AS OF APRIL 6, 5:00 PM)

Easterlies are winds coming from the East passing over the Pacific Ocean. These are warm and moist in nature; causing hot weather and generating thunderstorms.

SBMA/CLARK 25 – 32°C METRO MANILA 25 – 33°C

TAGAYTAY CITY 22 – 30°C

APR 9 THURSDAY

24 – 34°C

24 – 34°C

TUGUEGARAO

22 – 33°C

22 – 34°C

23 – 32°C

22 – 32°C

APR 10 FRIDAY

PHILIPPINE AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY (PAR)

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY 24 – 32°C

METRO CEBU 25 – 32°C

TACLOBAN CITY 24 – 32°C

TACLOBAN

24 – 33°C

25 – 33°C

24 – 33°C

23 – 33°C

CAGAYAN DE ORO

20 – 31°C

21 – 32°C

22 – 32°C

24 – 35°C

25 – 34°C

25 – 35°C

25 – 35°C

24 – 35°C

25 – 35°C

25 – 34°C

24 – 34°C

ZAMBOANGA

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY 20 – 30°C

ZAMBOANGA CITY 24 – 34°C

PUERTO PRINCESA

ILOILO/ BACOLOD

SUNRISE

SUNSET

MOONSET

MOONRISE

5:48 AM

6:09 PM

7:34 AM

8:29 PM

22 – 32°C

25 – 30°C

FULL MOON HALF MOON

APR 4

25 – 33°C

25 – 34°C

APR 12

11:44 AM

Partly cloudy skies

24 – 33°C

25 – 32°C

24 – 33°C

Cloudy to at times cloudy with rainshowers and/or thunderstorms

Weekday hourly updates: 6:00 AM on Balitaan, 7:00 AM & 8:00 AM on Good Morning Boss!, 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 1:00 PM on News@1, 3:00 PM, 4:30 PM, and 6:00 PM on News@6

www.panahon.tv

SABAH CELEBES SEA

6:45 PM

-0.03 METER

Partly cloudy to at times cloudy with rainshowers and/or thunderstorms

Watch PANAHON.TV everyday at 5:00 AM on PTV (Channel 4).

METRO DAVAO 25 – 34°C

LOW TIDEMANILA HIGH TIDE SOUTH HARBOR

8:06 PM

25 – 33°C

APR 10 FRIDAY

23 – 34°C

LEGAZPI CITY 25 – 31°C

ILOILO/ BACOLOD 24 – 32°C

APR 9 THURSDAY

24 – 33°C

24 – 33°C

25 – 31°C

Data-driven US Fed Chairman Janet Yellen has signaled where US interest rates were likely to end up going forward by the careful use of language, having recently dropped the word “patient” from its forward guidance to indicate an adjustment in rate at some point in the near term.

But in the Philippines, the average rates demanded by investors for the 182- and 364day T-bills were way higher than the previous month’s average.

The average rate at which the government was willing to sell 182-day T-bills was 1.918 percent, involving a volume of only P3.75 billion versus the P6 billion it originally offered for this tenor. This was higher by 21.9 basis points from the previous month’s rate of 1.699 percent. David Cagahastian

24 – 32°C

SBMA/ CLARK

24 – 32°C

Continued from A1

24 – 33°C

15 – 25°C

LEGAZPI

T-bills. . .

25 – 34°C

16 – 25°C

21 – 32°C

“We’re still on track on our planned borrowings that will allow us to fund partly fund the P100-billion capex for the year,”Ysmael added.

Earlier this year, Ayala Land raised P16 billion from the top-up placement of its 484.84 million common shares at P33 per share or a discount from last week’s close of P35 apiece.The company’s share price closed higher on Tuesday at P34.15.

“This P16-billion placement represents a landmark transaction for us as it is the single largest capital-raising exercise in the 23 years that Ayala Land has been a listed company. The funds generated will support our aggressive growth trajectory as declared in our 2020 Vision,” the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer Bernard Vincent Dy said earlier.

About 90 percent of the demand was generated by foreign investors and existing long-term shareholders.

UBS AG was the sole bookrunner of the placement with Goldman Sachs (Asia) Llc. as co-lead manager and BPI Capital Corp. served as domestic co-bookrunner.

METRO CEBU

15 – 24°C

22 – 31°C

Continued from A1

APR 8 3-DAY WEDNESDAY EXTENDED FORECAST

BAGUIO

TAGAYTAY

Ayala. . .

He added that the issuance of preventive suspension violated his rights since it seeks to suspend him for allegations, which can no longer hold him administratively liable since his reelection for a second term rendered the case against him moot and academic.

Binay also claimed that his suspension has no basis since the evidence against him is “not strong.”

In his petition filed before the CA, Binay accused respondent Carpio- Morales acting with grave abuse of discretion in ordering his suspension despite the fact that the evidence of guilt against him is not strong, in violation of Section 24 of Republic Act 6770, or the Ombudsman Act and Administrative Order 07 (Rules of Procedure of the Office of the Ombudsman).

He said the Makati Cty Hall Building II involved five construction phases with Phases I and II undertaken before hewas elected as mayor in 2010. The construction of Phases III to V were undertaken during his first term as mayor.

Thus, Binay said, he cannot be held accountable for any alleged anomaly involving Phases I and II of the project as he was not yet the elected mayor.

With respect to Phases III to V, which transpired during his first term from 2010-2013, Binay said the Ombudsman can no longer held him administratively accountable for such since his reelection for a second term rendered the case against him moot and academic.

METRO DAVAO

TUGUEGARAO CITY 23 – 34°C

BAGUIO CITY 15 – 24°C

APR 8 WEDNESDAY

METRO MANILA

LAOAG

LAOAG CITY 24 – 31°C

news@businessmirror.com.ph

@PanahonTV

11:32 AM

0.84 METER

news@businessmirror.com.ph

The Nation BusinessMirror

Government evacuates 99 Filipinos from Yemen

By Recto Mercene

N

inety-nine Filipino migrant workers, composed of 54 men, 43 women and two infants, were evacuated from Yemen, where fighting between rebels and forces loyal to the President have been raging in recent weeks.

Citing an update from the Crisis Management Team (CMT), the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said five buses just departed from Sanaa with 243 Filipinos on the way to the Yemen border, some six hours away by car.

“Another 20 Filipinos will travel separately to the Yemen border,” DFA Spokesman Charles Jose said in a news briefing. Some 400 Filipinos, who are mostly professional workers, remain in Yemen, Jose added.

The DFA said the CMT, led by Philippine Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Ezzedin Tago, along with officials and personnel from the Philippine embassy in Riyadh and the Philippine Consulate General in Jeddah, successfully led the evacuation. The group traveled on a convoy of two buses.

“They left the western Yemeni city of Hodeidah at 7 a.m. [Saudi time] on

April 5 and arrived at the Tuwal border crossing of Saudi Arabia at 11 a.m. on the same day. The journey was generally safe even though the group had to pass through several checkpoints along the 215-kilometer route.”

Yemen embassy and Consulate General personnel are now assisting the evacuees in Jizan, providing them food and accommodation, as well as arranging their onward travel to the Philippines, the DFA said.

The CMT will again undertake another land evacuation from the capital city of Sanaa via Hodeidah.

“Filipinos, who are still undecided about leaving the country, are strongly urged to do so and join the land-evacuation by contacting CMT personnel in MÖvenpick Hotel Sanaa,” Jose said.

Meanwhile, countries, including China, have stepped up efforts to evacuate their citizens amid the worsening humanitarian crisis.

Foreign news reports said flights from China, Egypt, Sudan and Djibouti are also scheduled, according to the Saudi-led coalition.

An Algerian aircraft rescued 160 of its citizens along with other North Africans on Saturday.

Editor: Dionisio L. Pelayo • Tuesday, April 7, 2015 A3

Malacañang plays down Aquino’s plunging satisfaction ratings

f

By Butch Fernandez

resh back from the Holy Week break, Malacañang on Monday promptly played down President Aquino’s declining public-satisfaction ratings, which plunged to 47 percent, from 63 percent, according to the results of a survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

Communications Secretary Herminio B. Coloma Jr. said the Palace “took solace” from the same SWS survey, which indicated that, despite Filipinos’ dissatisfaction with Aquino, 50 percent of respondents said they did not want the President to resign now.

“While there has been a decline in the President’s satisfaction ratings, it is evident that a higher number

of Filipinos affirm their belief in his leadership,” Coloma said.

Coloma, who is being eyed as the next chairman of the Civil Service Commission, pointed out that the figures from SWS “outnumber those who are dissatisfied [37 percent] or prefer that he resign from office [32 percent].”

“There is also a significant segment that is undecided about his

performance and about his resignation,” he said, noting that “this represents an opportunity for reaching out to those who are undecided or ambivalent in their sentiments toward the President and the administration” in the hope of “eventually winning them over.”

Coloma said the President and his Cabinet officials’ response to the sharp drop in his administration’s ratings is simply to show more determination and hard work in the remaining months of Aquino’s term, which ends on June 30, 2016.

The Palace took note of the survey, which was undertaken from March 20 to 23, three weeks after Pulse Asia’s March 1 to 7 survey.

“It is possible that, having gathered more information about current events, and having been able to know and understand better the President’s position on the Mamasapano incident, the people gave the President a higher satisfaction rating in the SWS survey than the performance-approval

rating that he obtained in the Pulse Asia survey at 38 percent,” Coloma said.

The Palace official said Aquino and the members of his Cabinet “are firmly determined to carry on with the implementation of salient reform and development programs geared toward achieving the primary objective of attaining inclusive growth and improving the quality of life of the Filipino people.”

He said the last 15 months of Aquino in office will be “focused on priority programs, such as infrastructure development, employment generation and poverty reduction and improved social protection.”

Meanwhile, the leadership of the House of Representatives said Aquino should roll out new initiatives focusing on achieving “inclusive economic growth.”

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., however, said the President should not be affected by the recent survey.

With Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

Economy BusinessMirror

A4 Tuesday, April 7, 2015 • Editors: Vittorio V. Vitug and Max V. de Leon

news@businessmirror.com.ph

PHL to show why it is called ‘Milan of Asia’ at Salone fair

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By Rizal Raoul Reyes | Correspondent

he Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (Citem), the exportpromotions arm of the Department of Trade and Industry, aims to generate interest in the European market when it unveils the country’s prized exports from April 14 to 20 at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan, Italy.

“Our exhibits in Salone will show the government efforts, not only in product and market development, but also in helping spawn design factories that marry industrial production and Philippine craftsmanship. The results of this marriage are being provided access to global platforms for the rise of the DesignPhilippines brand in the world market,” Citem Executive Director Rosvi C. Gaetos pointed out in news statement.

Philippine products to be displayed include sculpted wood, metals, fiber and welded wires— a l l sur pr isingly blended into extraordinarily and stunningly beautiful products.

Gaetos said the Philippine participation in Salone is highly strategic owing to Milan’s role as a global design destination, especially for home lifestyle products of distinctive quality that turned Italy into Europe’s furniture-design capital.

Citem Deputy Executive Director Rhea Matute said DesignPhilippines’s role is to develop Philippine brands that propose a design-led manufacturing as championed by the Italian industry, following the birth of its design companies, such as Alessi, Artemide, Cappellini, Boffi, B&B Italia and Zanotta.

Gaetos said the Salone exhibit will enable Philippine export firms to shine in the birthplace of modern design and be on a par with the world’s top players as equals, yet using their own design language.

“We will show how we design and manufacture our products based, not merely on function and industrial production, but also on our expressions of emotions, poetr y, values and identity,” Gaetos explained, citing the distinction earned by the

Philippines as the “Milan of Asia” as acknowledged by the A mer ican industr y maga zine Furniture Today USA in 1984.

That distinction, according to Citem Marketing Communications Director Art C. Dimaano, was further affirmed by best-selling author Elizabeth Reyes in another international trade publication Tropical Interiors, which explained how the Philippines earned the moniker “the Milan of Asia” and continued to deserve it. CNN’s style watcher Elsa Klensch was, likewise, quoted as describing the Filipino design creations as “Asian Fusion.”

Gaetos said Citem is working with the country’s top furniture designermanufacturers to “reinforce that distinction and vision [Milan of Asia] in the furniture world.”

Online reports have it that the contract-furniture market in Italy alone accounts for a whopping €2.6 billion, driven by tourism, hospitality, education, medical and airtransport businesses that propel property development, all requiring indoor and outdoor lifestyle products that set world standards of quality.

Moreover, Milan attracts 6 million visitors annually, and many come for international events that this city is known for, especially the Salone.

Popularly called “Milan Furniture Fair,” the Salone had 1,362 international exhibitors last year and drew 106,317 Italian and 205,464 foreign visitors, and 5,967 members of the media.

T he Desig nPhi lippines Pavilion at the Salone will topbill four Philippine brands of select designer-manufacturers: Atelier A by Cebu Fil Veneer Corp., Industria Edition, Schema and Vito Selma.

THE BILLBOARDS ARE BACK After the long vacation and the scare created by Typhoon Chedeng, workers are now busy putting back the billboards on the major thoroughfares in Metro Manila. NONIE REYES

PHL needs long-term energy-security plan—think tank

A

S news of higher power rates this summer puts a spotlight on the country’s long-standing energy woes, a think tank cautions the government against stopping at what it describes as merely “BandAid solutions.”

A paper by the Stratbase ADR Institute on Strategic and International Studies (Adri) said that while the Interruptible Load Program can potentially avert the much-feared rotating brownouts in Luzon, the bigger picture requires a more long-term energy-security plan.

“Augmenting the supply is the only long-term and viable solution to these persistent woes, a direction that requires both enabling policy and political will,” the paper said.

“While Congress and the Executive scramble to find BandAid solutions to avoid this looming power crisis, it does little to even begin solving the country’s power woes beyond 2015.”

“The government needs to be serious in implementing a more strategic solution to this problem, which has plagued the economy for more than a decade now,” Victor Andres C. Manhit added. “No economy in the world has achieved true and lasting development without a secure and competitive energy sector.”

The price of energy in the country, one of the highest in the region, has been cited as a barrier to attracting more foreign investments, seen as key to job creation and, in turn, inclusive growth and poverty reduction.

According to the paper, entitled “Beyond Band-Aid Solutions and Emergency Powers: The Need for a Long-Term Energy Security Plan,” one path to energy security is by attracting more investments in the power sector, which will only take place if such investments make economic sense.

As it is, the lack of power players currently defeats the objectives of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, the paper said.

“Increasing the supply of dependable power and therefore the competition in the generation side of the industry will also lower prices in the long term. The best way to do this is to attract more investments into generation.”

Storm fizzles after driving briefs away Lenten vacationers Germany’s pv2 taps local firm for solar facility

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ropic al Storm Chedeng (international code name Maysak) weakened before hitting the Philippines’s northeastern coast on Sunday, driving away thousands of Lenten holiday vacationers and tourists from beach and surfing resorts.

Alexander Pama, who heads the country’s disaster-response agency, praised the public cooperation after vacationers heeded warnings and moved away from beach resorts. Chedeng brought sporadic rains and whipped up waves, but no storm-related deaths have been officially declared by authorities so far.

Three men separately drowned in a beach resort and a river in northern Cagayan province last Friday and Saturday, according to the Office of Civil Defense (OCD), which monitors storm casualties and damage, but Pama said authorities were still trying to determine whether the deaths were caused by the then-approaching storm.

One of the men apparently took part in a drinking spree before swimming in a river, where he was found dead, the OCD said. The

two other men were swept away by strong currents.

“It’s nice to say zero casualties, but it’s too early to tell,” Pama told reporters.

Chedeng, first forecast as a super typhoon, killed four people and destroyed hundreds of homes in Micronesia before blowing toward the Philippines, where officials mobilized to prevent a potential disaster had the storm retained its lethal power. The storm was downgraded last Sunday to a tropical depression Many TV and radio networks did not shut down as they traditionally do for the Easter holidays in the largely Roman Catholic nation to report on Chedeng, which prompted officials to declare storm warnings and evacuate villagers from high-risk communities.

The 120,000-strong military went on full security alert in the country’s north to brace for any contingency.

The Philippines, which is lashed by about 20 storms each year, remains traumatized by Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan), which killed more than 7,300 people and left a path of destruction in the country’s central region in November 2013. AP

German renewable-energy (RE) provider PV2 Energie is tapping the industrial sector for its alternative-energy solutions and has signed Filipino manufacturing firm Bengar Industrial Corp. for a roof-mounted solar system.

Phillip Küpper, managing director from PV2 Energie GmBH, said with Bengar opting to build its own on-site RE facility, the company has qualified for Manila Electric Co.’s netmetering program.

The said program allows households and enterprises to sell back the excess electricity they have generated from their RE system back to their distribution utility and use them as credits to lower their electricity bill.

Edgar C. Tengki, president and general manager of Bengar, said with the Department of Energy approving their application for the program, they can take advantage of the cost savings in their industrial operations. The company also expects to save on diesel fuel that run their generator sets. Catherine N. Pillas

pnp, d.o.e. forge m.o.a. on renewable energy

The Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Department of Energy (DOE) signed on Monday a memorandum of agreement for the development and utilization of renewable-energy (RE) resources through the installation of solar energy-generation system.

Manhit added that the state of the country’s power plants and the frequent shutdowns ref lect the urgent need to revisit the technology used in the plants and, if possible, facilitate the construction of plants that utilize updated technologies that are more reliable and environment friendly.

The paper, the first to be released by the Adri this year, was written by the institute’s pool of researchers and marks the start of its Strategic Agenda for National Development. The series is envisioned to serve as a road map for the country’s future leaders and focuses on key political and economic issues that will shape the development of the nation.

The agreement was signed by PNP Officer in Charge Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina and Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla.

Through selection criteria, the DOE, with the aid of Japan International Corp. System and NEWJEC Inc. as consultants of the project, has identified the PNP Sports Center and Center for Law Enforcement Studies as the sites for REgenerating facility. According to the DOE, the sites can generate 600,000 k ilowatt-hours of solar power per year. Rene Acosta

ledoux urges journalists to contribute to peace process

European Union Ambassador Guy Ledoux of the European Union Delegation to the Philippines is reminding journalists, campus press, photojournalists and government communicators of the May 31 deadline for the submission of entries to the EU Peace Journalism Awards.

Ledoux urged journalists to contribute in the continuing peace debate. “This is a critical period in the Philippines and journalists have a significant role to play in ensuring that balanced, accurate, and responsible peace journalism is in place,” he said.

“The EU, which is a member of the International Monitoring Team, and its member-states in the Philippines reiterate that a negotiated political settlement in Mindanao remains all the more necessary to achieve a long-lasting peace in the Southern Philippines. With this conviction, I hope that the EU Peace Journalism Awards will be a vehicle to help in generating information, awareness, and better understanding of the peace situation in the Philippines,” Ledoux said.

Economy BusinessMirror

news@businessmirror.com.ph

Angara wants scholarships for teachers, school staff

By Recto Mercene

S

EN. Juan Edgardo Angara filed a bill which seeks to establish a tertiary-education transition fund to provide scholarships to teachers and nonteaching staff, as well as for the development of innovative curricular and learning systems of higher institutions.

The proposed fund will be used to prov ide g ra nts a nd sc hol arships w it h retur n of service agreements to academic and nonacademic personnel to upgrade their qualification through masteral, doctoral or postgraduate studies.

“We need to retrain our teachers to meet the instructional aptitude needed to teach an entirely new curriculum provided under the 12-year basic-education cycle.

These scholarships and grants will also attract new teachers and researchers to the higher-education sector,” said Angara, a known advocate of educational reform.

The fund will also be used to invest in the development of innovative and relevant curricula; learning and teaching systems; new equipment and digital processes in order to raise the quality and efficiency of education services.

He added that the need for continuing-education programs, targeted toward solving jobs-skills mismatch, leading to unemploy-

ment and underemployment.

The tertiary-education transition fund will be established during the transition period to provide financial assistance to education workers and institutions that will be affected by the implementation of the Enhanced Basic Education Act, or the K to 12 Act. With the implementation of the law, fourth-year high school or Grade 10 students would go to senior high school instead of college starting school year 2016-2017, leading to a decline of first- and second-year college enrollees.

The proposed fund will be used to provide income support and financial augmentation to retrenched or displaced employees due to the multiyear low enrollment during the transition period.

“We hear the sentiments of our teachers and other personnel, and we recognize the need to cushion the adverse effects of the implementation of K to 12,” Angara said.

“I’m urging my colleagues and government authorities to work together to mitigate the impact of the modernization of Philippine education with a goal of helping our country’s graduates become more globally competitive and improve their chances of finding gainful employment and rising from poverty,” he added.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015 A5

‘Govt must set aside funds for AIDS-prevention program’

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By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz

lawmaker on Monday urged the government to invest in a “vigorous” HIV/ AIDS-prevention program, as the Philippines is facing an “epidemic” with 22,018 confirmed cases.

Liberal Party Rep. Teddy Brawner Baguilat of Ifugao said the Philippines has the second-highest rate of increase in HIV/AIDS in Asia and the ninth in the world.

“Aside from improving our government health facilities and hiring more health workers and increasing their pay, the HIV/AIDS-prevention and -cure program should be our priority,” Baguilat said.

Data from the Department of Health (DOH) showed that from 1984—the year when the first HIV/AIDS case was detected in the country—up to January this year, there were 22,018 HIV/AIDS cases in the country.

The DOH said avoiding illicit sex was one way of avoiding HIV.

Currently, HIV still does not have any known cure. However, antiretroviral therapy may slow down the ailment.

Citing a United Nations report, Baguilat said at least P1.2 billion a year was required to roll out a massive information and education campaign; purchase medicine for those already suffering from HIV/ AIDS; and then test vulnerable sectors for HIV/AIDS. HIV causes AIDS, or the acquired immune deficiency syndrome, which destroys the human body’s biological defenses against disease.

“If we do not invest now, we are looking at a very dire situation in 2020, when we will need at least P4 billion a year for

treatment alone,” said Baguilat, a member for the majority of the House Committee on Population and Family Relations.

“Prevention is, indeed, a wiser and cheaper investment that the Philippines can and should make to contain HIV/AIDS numbers,” he added.

Baguilat is one of the principal authors of House Bill 5178, a stronger and more comprehensive HIV/ AIDS law that has been passed by the House of Representatives. The Senate is expected to pass its own version, thus leading to the signing into law of an improved HIV/ AIDS law.

If passed, the law will pave the way for routine voluntary testing, regular counseling for patients to encourage them to disclose their situation to their partners and their families.

Among the factors behind the rapid increase in reported cases are lack of adequate knowledge on how the virus is acquired; the low use of protection such as condoms; and also the increase in the number of people who have themselves tested for HIV/AIDS. The proposed law also seeks to expand the Philippine National

Aids Council to include more civil-society organizations, local government units and representatives from people living with HIV/AIDS. There are also antidiscrimination provisions to protect those with HIV/AIDS, as well as a separate budget provision for the HIV/AIDS program, since it is currently lumped together with the budget for treating all infectious diseases.

Baguilat said that he and the other authors of the HIV/AIDS bill are fighting for “zero.”

“We want zero, zero new HIV infections, because it is getting to that level of epidemic proportions. We need a stronger law that provides more resources to prevent HIV infections, as well as help those with infections,” Baguilat said.

“We also want zero stigma, so the proposed bill asks for an intensive information and education campaign to educate the public about HIV and AIDS, that they are not the same. We also have to address the discrimination against those with HIV and AIDS, like in schools and in places of work,” he added.

A6 Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Opinion BusinessMirror

editorial

A bureaucratic mess

O

N January 10, 1931, the United States Bureau of Reclamation made available the bid documents for one of the most ambitious construction projects in history. In today’s money value, the project cost was nearly $1 billion.

The project was so large that no single company or partnership could undertake the construction. Six major companies formed a consortium to bid for the project. The location was so remote that an entire city had to be built just to house the workers. Roads and a railroad line were built, as well as communication facilities. Materials came in from every US state to complete the construction.

On September 30, 1935, four years, eight months and 21 days later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the completed Hoover Dam as it was turned over to the US government.

In the middle of December 2011, some three years, three months and 22 days ago, the Daang Hari-Southern Luzon Expressway (Slex) link, now known as the Muntinlupa-Cavite Expressway, was awarded to the winning bidder.

The project cost is approximately $50 million and consists of a 4-kilometer four-lane toll road, from the junction of Daang Reyna and Daang Hari in Las Piñas and Bacoor, Cavite, to the Slex in Muntinlupa. By current estimates, it will hopefully be completed sometime in June 2015.

Is it too unbelievable to think that if the Philippine government had been in charge of the Hoover Dam project in 1931, it would still be “under construction”?

US senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy said in an interview in 1979 that, “The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency.” Unfortunately, in the 21st century, the inefficiency of the bureaucracy can be an economic anchor around the neck of the country.

It is not that the bureaucracy is necessarily run by inefficient and incompetent people, although that can be a problem. It is that the total system—from the legislators that write the laws through the courts that must settle disputes and challenges to the Executive branch that implements these programs—is broken. While “broken” maybe a strong word to describe the situation, the results justify that term.

The Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center, created by President Aquino in 2010, is mandated as “the central coordinating and monitoring agency for all PPP projects in the Philippines.” That sounds all well and good. However, by its own process structure, a PPP project requires more than 25 steps involving no less than five—and perhaps more—as “needed” other government agencies.

Neither the Executive nor the Legislative branches have made any significant systemic changes to the government bureaucracy in the last 30 years, and it shows. In a survey by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy firm, the Philippines has the third-worst bureaucracy in Asia after India and Indonesia. We are the fourth-worst place to do business after Algeria, Ukraine and Venezuela. That is a disgrace.

But a bigger disgrace is that our elected officials do not seem to care enough to do something positive about the bureaucratic mess the nation faces.

The ‘New York of Asia’ Manny B. Villar

THE Entrepreneur Fifth of a series

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HERE is no letup in developments of business-process outsourcing (BPO) office buildings, shopping centers, residential communities and other retail projects in Metro Manila, many other cities and provinces throughout the country, as demand continues to fuel the real-estate boom.

Just last month, local newspapers reported the opening of a new state-ofthe-art office building of Startek, a BPO company, in Pasig City. It is one of many foreign companies that are participating in the robust growth of the information technology-BPO in the Philippines.

The location of the Startek office reflects the trend among BPO companies to expand outside the commercial and business districts in Makati and Ortigas, which spreads the industry’s economic benefits outside Mega Manila.

Vista City, the biggest mixed-use project of Vista Land & Lifescapes, includes the development of several BPO office towers, which will benefit Las Piñas, Muntinlupa, Cavite and nearby towns in the province of Laguna.

Last month Rolls-Royce opened a

new showroom in Manila. Its officials said they saw a bright future for their business in the Philippines. The brand, as the local dealer related, is targeted at the “ultra high net worth” segment of the automotive market, which “are doing so well.”

Based on an informal search on the Internet, the prices of the Rolls-Royce, which are often considered as the royalty in the automotive business, range from $286,750 for the Rolls-Royce Ghost, to as much as $480,175 million for the Phantom. That’s a cool P12.62 million to P21.13 million, at P44 to the dollar.

Rolls-Royce basically completes the lineup of luxury cars that are now available to Filipino consumers, joining the Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, Audi,

BMW, Maserati, Bentley and the Mercedes in the league.

The burgeoning retail trade has also brought in the global lineup in fashion and even in grocery items. Shopping in the Philippines has also been raised to the international standards of comfort, luxury and efficiency, with the distinct touch of Filipino hospitality, which may make the country one of the world’s favorite shopping destinations.

News reports cited property consultant CBRE Philippines as saying the Philippines has emerged as a shopping brand haven in Asia, attracting the interest of the biggest retail brand owners in the world.

Real-estate developers, according to CBRE, continue to diversify into the retail segment to cope with consumer demand for shopping convenience. As I mentioned earlier, office buildings are not restricted to BPO operations but serve as anchor for commercial activities like the retail trade, restaurants and coffee shops.

Based on these developments, we are becoming a truly cosmopolitan country.

The BPO industry serves an international clientele; the tourism industry continues to make the Philippines a favored global destination; the retail trade makes shopping an international, but unique, experience; and our restaurants satisfy even the most discriminating palate.

Coffee shops, restaurants, convenience stores and even other retailers now operate round-the-clock to serve

We need ‘creative destruction’ John Mangun

OUTSIDE THE BOX

D

ON’T ask me what a “logarithm” is. My mathematical skills are limited to figuring out whether it is a better deal to “Go Large” or just buy another regular fries at the fast-food joint.

But I can do almost any numbers calculation, thanks to the wonderful world of the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

Scotsman John Napier invented logarithms in 1614. But nobody, except the super smart scientists like Johannes Kepler, cared until Edmund Gunter invented “Gunter’s Rule.” Gunter created a device that allowed a person to easily figure these logarithm things. Gunter’s Rule was replaced by the slide rule in 1677. It could do all the mathematical functions and was in use even by the team that put the first man on the moon.

Texas Instruments introduced the handheld calculator in 1967. But then a decade or so later, the personal computer came into being with spreadsheet programs available. VisiCalc gave way to Lotus 1-2-3 and, now, Excel is the choice.

You can download an app for your smartphone that does everything that a slide rule could do and more. At one time, there were over 800 different sliderule manufacturers. That last one was commercially manufactured in 1976 by

Keuffel & Esser Corp., a company that had been making slide rules for over 100 years. The handheld electronic calculator killed the slide-rule industry.

Gunter’s Rule going to the “RealCalc Scientific Android Calculator” is an example of “creative destruction.”

Early 20th-century economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the term creative destruction to describe the process by which continuing product and process innovation replace outdated ones. There is basically little difference between the slide rule and calculator except the calculator is easier to use, cheaper for the consumer and more powerful.

The railroad built by the United States in the 19th century was a revolutionary form of transportation for the public moving from one location to another. It was replaced by the airplane and the 2.1 million railroad employees now number about 200,000.

Creative destruction’s most important result is not only the products that it procures, but that it allows for an

economy to evolve into something better and stronger. However, there is always a cost. No pain, no gain.

The US telephone industry employed 421,000 switchboard operators in 1970, when Americans made 9.8 billion longdistance calls. By 2000 there were only about 150,000 telephones handling 106 billion calls. Increases in productivity due to technological advances were enormous. And in that 30-year period, the Internet came to life, now employing about 300,000 webmasters in the US alone, an occupation that did not exist as recently as 1990.

The creative destruction that transforms an economy is absolutely vital but it is also ruthlessly opposed every step of the way.

Here it is the 21st century and the Philippines is, for all intents and purposes, is a nation of subsistence farmers. While employment in agriculture has dropped from about 50 percent of the work force in 1980 to the current 32 percent, we have more than 2 million more employed in agricultural production than we did in 1990. Despite land reform, the Department of Agriculture programs and other government initiatives, our agriculture is dismal and nearly feudal in structure.

As Boo Chanco alluded to in his recent newspaper column, the 1987 Constitution tried to preserve a status quo condition that has been obsolete and outdated for decades. And that mind-set permeates the economy.

Metro Manila is dependent on a landtransportation system that was obsolete

the million-strong BPO work force, as well as tourists.

In Metro Manila and in other cities in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao, the night shift no longer belongs to security guards, hospital staff and maintenance personnel.

The lights in many office towers stay on day and night, as the hardworking BPO employees entertain the needs of consumers on the other side of the globe, who may not even know that the other person on the line is toiling in the dark of the night.

The BPO industry has changed the working habits and lifestyle of its employees. Perhaps, it is only in the Philippines where “happy hour” is in the morning, to serve the call-center employees just coming out of their shift.

Because of the many businesses spawned and driven by the BPO industry, as well as the change from a singleshift to a 24-hour operation, I think it is fair to say that the Philippines is fastbecoming the “New York of Asia,” the city that never sleeps.

All of these, again, are part of the ripples of benefits stirred by the realestate boom, led by the vibrancy of the private sector.

How long will this last?

To be continued For comments, e-mail mbv.secretariat@gmail.com or visit www.mannyvillar.com.ph.

at least 10 years ago. For an archipelago, our interisland transportation is nearly the same as 100 years ago. The Philippines’s airline system would be great if this was 1965.

Labor laws were written before there was a growing middle-class economy.

Tax laws assume that a person making P30,000 a month is rich. Even the electoral process seems based on Joseph Stalin’s 1923 statement: “The people who cast the votes decide nothing.

The people who count the votes decide everything.”

Creator of the Economic Confidence Model, Martin Armstrong, says that to achieve beneficial creative destruction, a nation must “Get everybody on one side to have the energy to move to the opposite side.” That is, only when all are so confident that conditions are nearly ideal, the way they should be, and want that everything to continue unchanging, can genuine and positive change occur.

When may creative destruction come to the Philippines? I believe it will begin near the end of 2015, as Western economies begin to seriously sink again.

Further, Asean integration may have substantial impact on the Philippines.

Both events will require some somber rethinking of where we are, where we need to go and how to get there.

E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com.

Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.

Opinion BusinessMirror

opinion@businessmirror.com.ph

Preventing the last disaster, accomplishing not much

A problem of governance

By S.E. Cupp

Tribune News Service

A

S a species, human beings are nothing if not predictable.

After every horrific disaster, whether man-made or natural, accidental or deliberate, we come together to collectively decide what we can do to prevent the next one, and in the case of the Germanwings intentional crash, the spitballing has already begun.

Should we submit pilots to more rigorous psychological testing?

Should they have to complete more training? Can technology help? And, of course, there’s the favorite of every government—more regulations.

But with fresh reports on Thursday that copilot Andreas Lubitz spent time researching suicide methods and cockpit-door security before crashing his plane into the French Alps, one has to wonder what, if anything, could have been done to prevent this mentally unstable pilot, hell-bent on taking his plane down, from carrying out some version of this terrifying mass murder.

And that might be the hardest lesson to learn out of these tragedies: that while there may be some useful revelations about security lapses or holes in the system, more often than not if a person is determined to do something terrible, it’s nearly impossible to prevent them.

Nevertheless, we always try, don’t we?

For instance, the Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932 was a response to the abduction of Charles Lindbergh’s baby, allowing federal authorities to intervene when kidnappers crossed state lines with their victims.

After the 1956 abduction of another baby, Peter Weinberger, Eisenhower signed new legislation reducing the FBI’s waiting period in kidnapping cases from seven days to 24 hours. While all inarguably good ideas, it’s hard not to notice that not one of these new practices would prevent a future kidnapping.

But perhaps no phenomenon has triggered more legislative reaction to correct for the last disaster than mass shootings. The 1994 assaultweapons ban signed by President Bill Clinton was a response to a 1989 shooting in Stockton, California, where five children were killed by a drifter named Patrick Purdy, who used a Chinese version of an AK-47. Even though a 2004 review of the effects of that ban by the National Research Council found that it “did not reveal any clear impacts on gun-violence outcomes,” anti-gun legislation is still regularly raised by Congress as a means of preventing future mass shootings.

Proving that you don’t need a

gun to commit a heinous atrocity, less than one year after the 1994 assault-weapons ban passed, Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring more than 600.

Of course, after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, America created a whole new federal agency and a host of new laws—including one requiring cockpit doors to lock from the inside—to address the threat of airplane hijackings, which were pulled off on 9/11 with neither guns nor explosives.

Europe followed suit, with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy strengthening France’s antiterror laws five separate times while in office. Just this past September, current President François Hollande increased government access to citizens’ personal data. But on January 7, two brothers—who were already being watched by French authorities, thanks to more robust surveillance laws—still managed to gun down 11 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo and a policeman on the street outside.

On the one hand, this tendency to want to solve for these acts of violence and terror, both random and organized, reveals an alarmingly arrogant side of human nature. One should always be wary of so-called solutionists who think they can solve complex and unpredictable problems with any number of facile work-arounds. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “I dread specialists in power because they are specialists speaking outside of their special subject.”

Yet, we routinely trust just these kinds of specialists in power to solve problems they likely know little about, from curbing gun violence to preventing oil spills. Lawmakers are rarely social scientists or engineers, but that doesn’t stop them from passing legislation meant to control the laws of nature, the laws of physics or the lawlessness of human evil.

On the other hand, some problems surely can be solved, and optimism might just be our greatest evolutionary achievement. As Einstein put it, “Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible.”

Edgardo J. Angara

L

AST week I cited California, Brazil and Iran as examples of how poor water management can cause very serious problems. It appears something similar looms for some parts of Mindanao.

The Zamboanga City Council recently declared a state of calamity as an ongoing dry spell already caused up to P133 million in damage and affected up to 8,924 hectares of farmland. Several farm animals in Kidapawan City have reportedly died due to heat stroke, while some estimate that the livelihood of more than 4,500 North

Cotabato farmers has been adversely affected.

These drought-induced problems come roughly a month after officials announced the onset of El Niño—the abnormal warming of the oceans that causes an extremely dry summer season. Such water scarcity hits our farmers the hardest, given that the agriculture sector accounts for up to

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

88 percent of total water withdrawals in the country.

Ironically, we are blessed with significant water resources—421 rivers basins, 72 lakes and several groundwater reserves. We are also a country that regularly experiences heavy rainfall.

But in 2012, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources reported that up to 70 percent of the 160 billion cubic meters of water available to the country each year is unutilized—either because they’re polluted or simply allowed to flow back into the oceans. This is deplorable, especially when only 9.4 percent of total agricultural land is irrigated, according to 2011 World Bank data.

Our highly fragmented institutional setup and weak regulatory framework exacerbates this problem. Up to 30 government agencies

Challenging the power of the 1 percent

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By Lydia Alpízar Durán | Inter Press News Agency

ÃO PAULO—When you are faced with the task of moving an object but find it is too heavy to lift, what is your immediate and most natural response? You ask someone to help you lift it. And it makes all the difference.

And so in the face of unprecedented economic, ecological and human-rights crises, we should not hunker down in our silos, but rather join together and use our collective power to overcome the challenges.

The recent World Social Forum (WSF) in Tunis showed that “Another World is Possible” if we work collectively to address the structural causes of inequality.

It is for this reason that the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (Awid) has pledged to work together with ActionAid, Civicus, Greenpeace and Oxfam.

The gathering of approximately 70,000 activists in Tunis, the various workshops held on alternate economic models—including an Awid-led session on “Feminist Imaginations for a Just Economy”—the protests against shrinking spaces for dissent and the calls for social justice are critical in a world where the economic, ecological and humanrights crises are interconnected and getting worse.

This is the power of the WSF. This 13th edition, held for the second time in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, is a reminder, and a call to action that it is people power that will change the world.

Changing the world, especially where women’s rights and gender justice is concerned, means recognizing and bringing visibility to the

interrelatedness of issues.

While in the past 20 years there have been notable achievements for women’s rights and gender justice, there is still so much more to be done.

At the center of the current global crisis is massive economic inequality that has become the global status quo. Some 1.2 billion impoverished people account for only 1 percent of world consumption, while the million richest consume 72 percent.

The levels of consumption in the global North cannot be sustained on this planet by its peoples or the Earth itself. They are disappearing whole ecosystems and displacing people and communities.

The challenges are not only increasing, but also deepening. Many women and girls, trans and intersex people continue to experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and vulnerability throughout their lives.

These include the disproportionate impact of poverty, religious fundamentalisms and violence on women, growing criminal networks and the increasing power of transnational corporations over lands and territories, deepening conflicts and militarization, widespread genderbased violence and environmental destruction.

Women have been caretakers of

the environment and food producers for centuries, and are now at the forefront of its defense against habitat destruction and resource extraction by corporations.

Violence against women who defend the earth occurs with impunity, at precisely the moment when “women and girls” are also receiving the attention of various corporate philanthropic actors as drivers for development.

Government and institutional commitments to address inequalities for the most part have been weak. And while people’s mobilization and active citizenship are crucial, in all regions of the world the more people mobilize to defend their rights, the more the civic and political space is being closed off by decision-making elites.

This year’s Political Declaration from the United Nations’s 59th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW59) is just the latest example.

Twenty years after the Beijing Declaration—the most progressive “blueprint” for women’s rights of its time and the result of 30,000 activists from around the globe putting pressure on 189 participating government representatives—women’s rights and feminist groups were shut out of the CSW “negotiations” with the result that the declaration is weak and does not go far enough toward the kind of transformative change necessary to truly achieve the promises made in Beijing.

The forces of justice, freedom and equity are being relentlessly pushed back. There is an urgent need to strengthen our collective voices and power, to further expand our shared

are involved in water governance, making it difficult to implement any coherent water-management strategy or to pour smart investments into necessary infrastructure.

Such a situation illustrates what the United Nations’s 2015 World Water Development Report emphasized about the global water crisis being “one of governance, much more than of resource availability.”

We need to establish the appropriate policy framework to manage our water resources properly, lest more of our farmers lose their livelihood and food prices across the nation skyrocket. While still a senator, I pushed for measures on wide watersector reform. With the country on the rise, discussions on this matter should resume.

E-mail: angara.ed@gmail.com.

analyses and build interconnected agendas for action.

The WSF contributes to doing just that. At this year’s WSF, there was a diversity of feminist activists in attendance and the systemic causes of global inequalities were addressed in intersectional ways linking new relationships to land, and land use to patriarchy, food sovereignty, decolonization and corporate power.

These connections make the strug gle seem huge, but also make possible solidarity between movements.

As a global network of feminist and women’s rights activists, organizations and movements, Awid has been working for over 30 years to transform dominant structures of power and decision-making and advance human rights, gender justice and environmental sustainability.

In all that we do, collaboration is at the core.

I strongly believe that we cannot achieve meaningful transformation unless we join together in all of our diversity. So for Awid, joining with the struggles for environmental sustainability, just economies and human rights, is another step in a long trajectory of working with and for other movements.

Together we can take bolder steps, push each other further, and draw upon our combined knowledge and collective power to amplify our voices. Working together is the only way to reverse inequality, and to achieve a just and sustainable world.

Lydia Alpízar Durán is executive director of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development.

Credit-card issuers shouldn’t bully customers into arbitration clauses

By David Lazarus Los Angeles Times/ TNS

C

REDIT-card companies say you can’t sue them and you can’t join other customers in suing them, and if you don’t like it, tough.

Federal regulators finally have reached the obvious conclusion: That’s not fair.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released a study showing that so-called arbitration clauses in credit-card service contracts frequently prevent consumers from having a grievance adequately addressed.

“These arbitration clauses restrict consumer relief in disputes with financial companies by limiting class actions that provide millions of dollars in redress each year,” said Richard Cordray, director of the watchdog agency.

“Now that our study has been completed, we will consider what next steps are appropriate,” he said.

You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that he’s talking about new rules for the industry.

Arbitration allows businesses and customers to sidestep the court system and have a dispute resolved

by an independent arbitrator who listens to what both sides have to say.

The problem, consumer advocates say, is that arbitrated settlements often favor businesses. Denying consumers the right to sue thus prevents people from seeking an alternative— and possibly more advantageous— means of solving a problem.

“Big banks and financial predators are using fine-print terms in contracts as an effective license to steal,” said Christine Hines, consumer and civil justice counsel at the advocacy group Public Citizen.

It’s not just banks and card issuers, although that’s the particular bailiwick of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Arbitration clauses also are routine features of contracts for phone, cable and insurance companies, among others.

Businesses love arbitration clauses. Not only do they prevent people from suing on an individual basis, they block them from joining class-action lawsuits on behalf of potentially thousands of customers.

When relatively small amounts of money are involved—a questionable $5 fee, say—it’s not worth it to go to court. A class-action lawsuit, however, can hold a company accountable by allowing many customers to

band together.

Arbitration is also preferred by businesses because settlements often are limited and because professional arbitrators, whose fees are typically paid by the company in a dispute, tend to side with their corporate sugar daddies.

A 2007 report by Public Citizen found that over a four-year period, arbitrators ruled in favor of banks and credit-card companies 94 percent of the time in disputes with California consumers.

That’s not to say arbitration should be avoided at all costs. There needs to be a way to resolve disputes outside the congested court system, if both sides prefer.

“Arbitration makes it possible for American consumers to resolve disputes in a cost-effective, fair and timely manner that often benefits all parties involved,” said Richard Foster, senior vice president of legal and regulatory affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, an industry group. He urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “to continue working with the industry to educate consumers about this important benefit.”

The problem with arbitration clauses is that they force people to

“Businesses love arbitration clauses. Not only do they prevent people from suing on an individual basis, they block them from joining class-action lawsuits on behalf of potentially thousands of customers. When relatively small amounts of money are involved—a questionable $5 fee, say—it’s not worth it to go to court. A classaction lawsuit, however, can hold a company accountable by allowing many customers to band together.

Arbitration is also preferred by businesses because settlements often are limited and because professional arbitrators, whose fees are typically paid by the company in a dispute, tend to side with their corporate sugar daddies.”

go down this road, rather than let them choose a preferred means to settle a complaint.

“That’s a really big deal,” Public Citizen’s Hines told me. “You’re being denied your constitutional right to go to court.”

The US Supreme Court ruled in

a 5-4 decision in 2011 that all businesses can include arbitration clauses in their contracts.

However, the same financial reform law that created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010 gave it authority to “prohibit or impose conditions or limitations on the use” of arbitration clauses for credit cards, checking accounts, payday loans and other financial services.

The agency’s study found that as many as 80 million US credit-card customers are subject to arbitration clauses.

The study showed that arbitration is much better for businesses than for consumers. Only 20 percent of cases resolved in consumers’ favor in 2010 and 2011 resulted in relief being paid, according to the study, while 93 percent of cases resolved in favor of companies led to payments.

More strikingly, the study found that when consumers prevailed in arbitration, they were awarded an average of 57 cents for every dollar claimed. But when companies prevailed, they received 98 cents on the dollar.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minnesota., introduced the Arbitration Fairness Act last year. It would prohibit forced arbitration in consumer disputes, as

A7

well as employment, antitrust and civil-rights cases.

It’s a smart bill, although its chances of being passed by the Republican-controlled Congress are slim to none. New regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are therefore the best hope to address arbitration clauses in industries under its jurisdiction.

The Philadelphia law firm Ballard Spahr, which focuses on defending banks from consumer lawsuits, said it appears the bureau has “set the stage for a rulemaking that will not be favorable to the industry,” even though “prior studies have overwhelmingly concluded that consumers do in fact like arbitration.”

If so, arbitration should stand on its own merits. But that’s not the case.

By requiring that consumers accept arbitration, businesses have demonstrated that this is their preferred means of problem solving, which should be a red flag to anyone expecting a fair process.

Credit-card issuers and lenders have every right to encourage customers to arbitrate rather than sue.

However, they have no right to hold a gun to people’s heads. That’s not dispute resolution.

It’s bullying, pure and simple.

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A8 Tuesday, April 7, 2015

DPWH threatens to penalize bidders with bogus papers

By Lorenz S. Marasigan

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RIVATE parties seeking to corner infrastructure deals being auctioned off by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) were warned on Monday to stop fooling the government by submitting bogus documents for eligibility.

These entities, Public Works Secretary Rogelio L. Singson said, will face grave sanctions, if found guilty.

The Cabinet official issued a policy directive calling the attention of contractors, who are prospective bidders for the DPWH infrastructure contracts, to disclose all their ongoing and completed projects with the government and private entities.

“I noticed that some contractors or bidders do not disclose complete information of their ongoing projects.

In some instances, their submitted documents for eligibility do not have information on ongoing contracts, particularly those with the private entities,” he said.

Singson further clarified that ongoing contracts, including those awarded but not yet started, are those contracts within the department;

outside the DPWH, like national government agencies, governmentowned and -controlled corporations, and local government units; and private entities.

The directive spelled out that “every prospective bidder for a DPWH infrastructure contract shall submit as part of its technical documents for eligibility a statement of all of its ongoing and completed government and private contracts.”

It includes contracts awarded but not yet started, if any, whether similar in nature and complexity to the contract to be bid out, within the period provided in the bidding documents. The statement shall disclose litigation history of the bidder’s ongoing contracts with the government and private entities.

Noncompliance with the order, Singson said, “shall make the concerned bidders liable to the penalties.”

Singson has also directed all heads of the DPWH procuring entities to strictly enforce and monitor compliance to said department order or face penalties of reprimand for the first offense; suspension for one to 30 days for the second offense; and dismissal for the third offense.

www.businessmirror.com.ph

Disasters cost economy ₧311.99B in 10-yr span

T

By Cai U. Ordinario

he country’s economic losses from natural and man-made disasters reached P311.99 billion from 2003 to 2013, according to data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

The PSA’s Compendium of Philippine Environment Statistics (CPES) said the economy suffered the most from natural disasters, such as typhoons, earthquakes and diseases, among others, over the 10-year period.

The PSA said losses from natural disasters were estimated at P307.51 billion, while man-made disasters cost the country P4.48 billion in revenues from 2003 to 2013.

“The Compendium is a compilation of statistical information collected from data produced by various government agencies and from data available in different statistical

publications,” the PSA said.

Data showed that between 2003 and 2013, the year that natural disasters caused the most losses was in 2013, when the economy recorded a P93.02-billion loss.

This was largely due to the P93-billion economic loss suffered by the economy from destructive tropical cyclones.

In 2013 the biggest disaster that hit the Philippines was Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan). More than 20 typhoons were recorded to have entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility in that year.

Natural disasters, like the recent Typhoon Chedeng (international code name Maysak), are among the major causes of economic losses across different sectors in the country. AP

The government estimated that private households suffered the most from tropical cyclones in 2013.

The private sector suffered losses worth P58.18 billion due to destructive tropical cyclones.

Data also showed that infrastructure losses came in second at P22.8 billion, while agriculture suffered a P12.02-billion setback.

The year when natural disasters posted the least economic loss was in 2005, with only P3 billion. The

highest economic loss in that year was destructive tropical cyclones, which accounted for losses worth P2.63 billion. Meanwhile, in terms of man-made disasters, the year that recorded the highest economic loss was in 2006, at P706.8 million.

About P676.5 million of these losses were accounted for by structural fire incidents. The other incidents that recorded major losses were sea mishaps that accounted for P15.3 million of total losses, and another P15 million in chemical/oil spill.

The lowest economic loss in terms of man-made disasters was recorded in 2009, at P138.3 million. Most of these losses were attributed to structural fires that cost the economy some P136.8 million.

The remainder of the amount, or around P1.5 million, was accounted for by bombings incidents and/or grenade explosions.

The 2014 CPES is a compilation of statistics and other information focusing on the core indicators of the six components following the revised Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics of the United Nations.

DELAYED BY CHEDENG Residents in a Marinduque town walk past vehicles that have been waiting for their ferry trip from a port in the province just after the Holy Week. Passengers were stranded, as ferry trips were canceled due to Typhoon Chedeng (international code name Maysak). ALYSA SALEN

OIL RISES AS SAUDI HIKES PRICES AMID IRAN EXPORT UNCERTAINTY O

il rose after Iran’s nuclear accord with world powers left the timing of increased crude supplies from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) member uncertain, and as Saudi Arabia raised prices for shipments to Asia.

Futures climbed as much as 2.7 percent in New York. Physical oil markets won’t be affected by Iran before 2016 as the potential lifting of sanctions, which could allow the Persian Gulf nation to boost production, still faces obstacles, according to Morgan Stanley. Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude exporter, narrowed the discount on its main Arab Light grade for next month’s sales to Asia.

Oil has advanced the past three weeks amid speculation that Iran won’t be able to boost its crude exports immediately and add to a global supply glut that drove oil almost 50 percent lower in 2014. Global demand is improving, Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on March 23.

“There isn’t going to be an im-

mediate removal of sanctions against Iran as it initially requested, so there won’t be a huge change in supplies in the near future,” Hong Sung Ki, a commodities analyst at Samsung Futures Inc. in Seoul, said by phone.“The Saudis are raising OSPs [official selling prices] because there seems to be some support from the demand side.”

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for May delivery gained as much as $1.34 to $50.48 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $50.28 at 2:52 p.m. Singapore time. The contract fell 95 cents to $49.14 on Thursday.

Total volume was about 10 percent below the 100-day average. The exchange was closed April 3 for the Good Friday holiday.

Nuclear talks Brent for May settlement climbed as much as $1.30, or 2.4 percent, to $56.25 a barrel on the Londonbased ICE Futures Europe exchange.

It dropped $2.15 to $54.95 on Thursday. The European benchmark crude

traded at a premium of $5.74 to WTI. A preliminary accord on Thursday with world powers signals Iran may be able to accelerate crude exports within months of a final agreement that negotiators plan to conclude in June. The US and European Union would lift economic sanctions on the Persian Gulf nation if the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifies its compliance with curbs on its nuclear program.

If Iran expands output by 1 million barrels a day and clears supplies held in floating storage, any “cyclical recovery”in global oil prices could be delayed by as long as one year, according to Morgan Stanley. The verification by the IAEA could take more than six months, analysts including Adam Longson said in a report on Sunday.

Iranian supplies Iran’s oil exports have been reduced by half to about 1 million barrels a day after sanctions were imposed in mid-2012. It tied Kuwait last month See “Oil,” A2